Sheth Lecture in Indian Studies: T. N. Ninan

9/24/2017 5:00 PM

Sheth Lecture in Indian Studies: "The Challenges of Being a Latecomer"
with T. N. Ninan, Chairman of Business Standard Ltd.
Free.

India's rise has followed three to four decades behind that of the East Asian countries. As East Asia has slowed, India has gathered momentum to become the world's fastest-growing large economy. As a latecomer to the party, India has the usual advantages of learning from others' experiences, but the disadvantage of having to create space for itself in a crowded world with more established players. In addition, India faces three distinct disadvantages: functioning in a world being transformed by technology; dealing with a noticeably less hospitable international trading environment; and finding solutions when the standard economic policy packages have created rising inequality such that it presents new social and political challenges.

The principal challenge for latecomer India is how to deliver sustained, rapid economic growth, regardless of these circumstances, and thereby to create the millions of jobs that are needed to get people off low-productivity farms and into higher-productivity occupations. India will have to work out new solutions for itself.

About T. N. Ninan
T. N. Ninan is widely considered to be a pioneering editor and trend-setter in Indian business journalism. During an illustrious career spanning more than four decades, he brought about transformative change and rapid growth in different publications that he led as the editor. His book on India’s recent history and prospects, titled The Turn of the Tortoise, was published in India by Penguin Random House in 2015, and later in New York by Oxford University Press.

He is currently the Chairman of Business Standard. Earlier, he was the paper’s Editor from 1993 to 2009, and also its Publisher for most of that period. Before moving to Business Standard, Mr. Ninan was the editor of The Economic Times; among magazines, the executive editor at India Today (India’s leading newsmagazine) in the 1980s, and later the editor of Business World.

Mr. Ninan has been a television commentator on economic and business issues. He was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 2013-2014. He has been at various times a board member of the World Editors Forum, President of the Editors Guild of India, member of the National Integration Council, member of the Board of Trade, and an invitee to the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on Trade and Industry. He has taken part in Track II Dialogues with the US, Germany, China, Israel and Singapore. He currently chairs the Board of Trustees of the Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation.

Mr. Ninan is a recipient of several professional awards, including three for lifetime achievement.